As it is commonly known, hydroponic cultivation consists of an artificial procedure of cultivation without soil, which is carried out on a support structure where a plant with small roots is placed, which is provided with liquid fertilizer with a formulation suitable for the nutritional needs of the specific type of plant grown, so that with appropriate light, which may also be artificial, the suitable concentration and proportion of nutrients dissolved in water provide the optimal growth conditions for the plant, and in consequence, the yield of the plants is far better than that of traditional systems.
At the same time, it also has a series of other advantages such as higher plantation density, perfect protection of the roots and the plant as a whole against the action of pathogen agents, etc.
The applicant is the owner of the Spanish Invention Patent with application number ES 2 125 803, which describes a procedure of hydroponic cultivation and the complementary device for putting it into practice of which the present invention is an improvement.
More specifically, in a facility with this procedure, a series of suspended channels is placed on parallel filiform supports. These channels comprise an upper sheet with orifices in which to plant the respective plants, a lower sheet without orifices that acts as collector, and intermediate sheets that comprise a series of upper orifices, but these are offset longitudinally in their sheets depending on the plants to be cultivated. The channels are connected to a pipe feeding them water and nutrients and controlling growth of plants and temperature. Micro-pipes or similar protrude from the level of the upper sheet of the pipe for each irrigation unit, that is, for each plant, so that they are watered individually. The liquid cascades down through the channels by means of the staggered orifices until it reaches the lower channel, and the orifices direct in turn the roots of the plants along the same path taken by the nutrients.
A facility of this type is suitable for a monoculture of a determined type of plants, that is, for a plurality of plants identical to each other. But, it is not ideal for growing plants with different growth rates or of different species, since their roots quickly become in contact with each other, which results in interactions that harm some of the plant in relation to others.